Our Woman in Moscow(77)

And I am left wondering on which Digby I’m supposed to fire it.



The men tramp on ahead with the boys, while Iris and I walk with Claire. To my surprise, the little tyke picks up my hand and swings along next to me. She calls me Auntie Wuth as if she’s known me all her life.

“Well, of course she does,” Iris says. “I talk about you all the time. The trouble we used to get into when we were little. You would always take the blame for me.”

“That’s because nobody would have believed you’d caused the trouble yourself. That innocent face of yours.”

She cuts off a laugh. I look at her face and notice she’s wincing, though she keeps on walking in that rolling waddle of pregnant women.

“Everything all right?” I ask.

“Just the usual. I don’t think it will be long.”

“Good, because I don’t think I can hold out much longer.” I cast a glance around us and see nobody near, except for a man in a dark suit who lingers on the path behind us, about thirty yards away. I speak in a soft voice. “I don’t know how you could stand it, all these years. The listening ears.”

She laughs gently. “I do appreciate your coming, Ruth. I mean that. After all these years, out of the blue. I don’t know how we’d manage without you.”

Without warning, Claire wheels in front of me and holds up her hands. I stare at her, perplexed. She gazes up soulfully with her mother’s face, shaped like a heart, fringed with her mother’s dark hair, and waggles her fingers.

“My God, she looks exactly like you,” I tell my sister.

“That’s a blessing, anyway. Are you going to pick her up, or not?”

“Pick me up!” Claire says, right on cue.

“Oh, that’s what this means.” I waggle my fingers back at her and bend down to hoist her on my hip. She’s lighter than I thought, as if her bones are hollow, like a bird’s. She snuggles her arms and legs around me and rests her warm head in the hollow of my shoulder. Her hair smells of honeysuckle and childhood.

“Tank you, Auntie Wuth,” she says.

So distracted am I by the unfamiliar sweet warmth of Claire’s body, I don’t think to ask Iris what she meant. Why it should be a blessing that a child looks like her mother instead of her handsome father.



In fact, something else nags me, and I realize what it is just before the second intermission of Boris Godunov at the Bolshoi Theatre that evening, where Kedrov takes us as a cultural surprise. An extraordinary and moving performance, of course, in the most sublime surroundings. The bass in the title role is as big and fearsome as a Cossack. We sit in a gilded box with a couple of Politburo types and their wives, who don’t speak English and whose names I don’t remember. Kedrov sits on one side and Fox sits on the other, murmuring the occasional translation in my ear. My agitation increases by the moment. I sit there in an agony of impatience until the curtain drops, the lights illuminate. I snatch Fox’s hand and attempt to sweep him off for a moment of private conversation, but Kedrov steps between us, smiling his emollient smile, and insists we accompany him for a tour of the costume archives.

By the time we return to the hotel, the hour is just past midnight. A trace of gardenia perfumes the air, and a tray of caviar and chilled vodka sits on the sofa table in our suite. How nice. I kick off my shoes—unzip my long evening gown and kick that off, too—drag Fox straight into the bedroom—tug off his bow tie—purr, Let’s do what we did in Paris.

“What did we do in Paris?”

“Don’t you remember Paris, darling? I’ll show you.”

He catches on quickly. When we’re both in bed, covers over our heads, I whisper, “Something’s fishy over there, and I think you know it.”

“Your sister?”

“No. Him. He’s happy. He’s not going anywhere.”

Fox catches his breath. Our tent grows stuffy. I throw back the covers, suck in some oxygen, and moan, “Oh! Oh! Yes, oh God!”

Under the blankets again, I roll him over and bite his neck, so he shouts out the name of his Savior. Then I whisper in his ear, “I’m right, aren’t I? She’s the one who wants out. Which raises the question.”

“What question?” he gasps.

Stuffy again. I sit up and straddle him—tear the buttons off his crisp white formal shirt—oh, yes I do—because I want him off guard, you see—I want him to act and sound like a man making ferocious love to his wife—I want him to let slip something he’d never slip otherwise. His pale hair bristles against the white sheets. His hands find my hips. His eyes shut tight against the sight of Ruth Macallister wearing nothing but her creamy satin slip.

“God, yes, yes! More!” I howl. I roll him on top of me—not an easy feat, he weighs a ton—and draw the covers back up.

“What’s in it for you?” I whisper. “Why all this trouble for a housewife and her kids?”

“Not now!” he hisses back.

“Yes, now! Or I’ll—”

And I guess I’ll never know whether he does what he does next for my sake, for himself, or for the United States of America. Does it matter? He starts with a kiss, a real one. I kiss him back—why not? Down below, he’s just as formidable as you might expect, an advantage he wields so tenderly, so patiently, I fly a little out of my mind at one point and possibly confess a few things you shouldn’t confess to any man, even in bed. Afterward, he carries the caviar into the bedroom and feeds it to me in tiny spoonfuls. Allows me a little vodka to wash it down. Before we sleep, we do it all over again, and I imagine we leave those invisible listeners in no doubt of one thing, anyway, the authenticity of our connection, which might perhaps save our lives—who knows?